Re: Simafira: phonetics

> For one thing, the script is completely phonetic.  (Is this
> unusual?)
Nah, there's no problem with it.  Some of us like to mess things up, but
some of us don't.

> There are a few sounds missing to try and make the language "flow"
> similarly to, but not exactly like, a Polynesian language.
Missing from what?  If the sounds you mentioned are the only ones not in
your conlang then that means you must have a really awful consonantal
system, full of retroflex nasal clicks and voiced uvular ejectives and
other such monsters.  <<shudder>>

> Affricates
> were done away with, softened to [f] or [Z].  The sound for "r" is [R].
 I also
> removed [g], [v], and [z]; [v] was reassigned to [f], [z] to [Z].
Words
> themselves are constrained so that they may not end with a stop.
I'm confused now.  It sounds like you're talking about changing one
language into another, saying that "[v] was reassigned to [f]" and that
"Affricates were done away with."  Yet you never directly mention parent
nor daughter language.  If you *are* changing one language into another,
what are you starting from?  If not, then in what sense is [v] assigned
to [f]?  If the language doesn't have [v], then it doesn't have
[v]--period.  There's no need to assign anything to anything unless, of
course, you're talking about how borrowings are assimilated or how sound
change occurs.

My guess is that you are (subconsciously?) starting from your idea of an
"ideal" phoneme set, and then deciding which phonemes are added to that
set, and which are lost.  The problem is that I don't know what your
ideal phoneme set is, and in fact, there *is* no universal phoneme set.
There's a very large set of possible sounds that languages *can* use, and
a very small set of sounds that almost all languages *do* use.  However,
neither of these is really useful or interesting to the conlanger, unless
they're working on IAL's.

The moral of the story:  Don't say what sounds your conlang *doesn't*
have.  Stick to what it *does* have.

> Also, somewhat oddly, I lost [T] and [D], since I've heard these
> used in
> enough conlangs to try and soften them that it themeth that everyone
> who
> conlangth is thpeaking with a lithp.
:-).  Yivríndil has [T], but it's siblings don't.

> I also made a weird addition - [K].  This might end up being
> dropped,
> because none of my other speakers can make that sound!
Um, addition to what?  A previous version of the language?  See rant
above . . .

> There are five vowels - [a E i o u].  I'm putting them together to form
> dipthongs, though I don't know if those technically count!  As an
example,
> there's an /eo/ sound that I borrowed from Baltimore...it's a very
opened-up
> /o/.  It's why Baltimoreans who are headed to the beach are sometimes
> transcribed as "gaywin' downy ayshin" (say it out loud).
Can you describe this phonetically?  When I mimic the accent (badly) I
find myself making [ay].  Is that what you mean?

> For now,
> comments are more than welcome!
You have mine ;-).  Sorry I kind of went off on you . . . feel free to
explain and ridicule in return.


Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran
jaspax@ juno.com
"There is enough light for those that desire only to see, and enough
darkness for those of a contrary disposition."  --Blaise Pascal

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